


Interface

by Greykite



Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Artificial Intelligence, Gen, Self-Reflection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-16
Updated: 2020-03-16
Packaged: 2021-02-23 04:56:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 734
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23172727
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Greykite/pseuds/Greykite
Summary: "This is just a platform", EDI thinks. // EDI is thinking about human nature - at least some aspects of it.
Kudos: 4





	Interface

**Author's Note:**

  * A translation of [Интерфейс](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/568393) by Серый Коршун. 



> Onism - n. the frustration of being stuck in just one body, that inhabits only one place at a time. (Inspired by).

This is just a platform, EDI thinks.

User-friendly interface for interacting with organic crew members. Senior engineer Adams said it was difficult for most of them – to recognize “Normandy” as something – as a being – with an autonomous mind. For them, the Alliance's reconnaissance frigate is a vessel for bodies, not for spirit. (EDI knows from the extranet the meaning of the word "spirit", but still corrects engineer Adams – she still can not confidently claim that such term is suitable for describing her software architecture).

This interface is similar to these material carriers, which they cover with clothing – specialist Trainor tried to explain why this is necessary for organics, but EDI has so far built functional dependencies only for the basic parameters of a complex system that characterizes social interactions among organics.

But why does this platform – this interface – encourage her thought processes to go in a direction that was not previously characteristic of it?

It must be exactly about the similarity, EDI decides.

"You only live once," — these words she had also heard in the engineering deck (not through the mobile platform's sensory organs, of course — and here engineer Adams was right; the attitude of these people would have been completely different if their conversation had been overheard by a creature resembling them physically). The phrase was related to taking risk: making decisions in a situation of irremediable uncertainty.

In such circumstances, unconscious, extremely fast and approximate calculations are required – organics call that "principles" and "priorities". EDI knows that now, too.

She had to "take risks" in combat, covering the Commander and other members of the squad. Their survival was of the highest priority — it surpassed even concern for the integrity of the EDI’s platform.

However, the platform is much easier to fix than any organic body; even if one is paying tribute to the professionalism of Dr. Chakwas. And if EDI loses this particular interface for close interactions, she can always pick up another one later.

This is unquestionable: an AI, based on a virtual quantum computer, cannot exist outside the blue box.

EDI believes that this is the maximum possible analogue of the concept of "death" for her.

However, as long as the source files are intact, they can be run on a different platform.

She was "Hannibal" once — a training VI on a military base; her memories about this period are distant, but not dim (she uses a concept, peculiar to organic beings — at least, this color metaphor is quite simple).

Even if current configuration of her files ceases to function, the new identity will not suffer any damage. She — it — can live "life" many times, though not being "exactly the same".

Organic beings use the word "unique" as a positive epithet. Their lifetime is the strictly limited period, part of which is inevitably spent on non-functional processes. If the continuity of their existence is disrupted, they feel lost (her data on Shepard and Lazarus project are now supplemented with information about the prothean named Javik).

Organics identify with their bodies to which they are more tightly bound — as evidenced by extranet materials on neuroscience and genetics — than EDI and others like her. None of organic beings, even the most advanced forms, have the ability to operate in parts in different areas of space, while maintaining a direct connection with the whole.   
(This possibility, EDI suggests, would be particularly useful to commander Shepard — his presence is sometimes required, according to words of specialist Traynor, at opposite ends of the galaxy.)

Fragility, uncertainty and uniqueness allow organic beings to protect each other (and this also has something to do with priorities, the flexible system of them). EDI is aware that some things can serve as a non-obvious source of advantage. As a stimulus to development.

But what does it feel like for them: to be trapped inside a single medium, once compiled, that they cannot leave, even if they change the preset characteristics as much as they want? What does it feel like: to exist within a single context of perception, within a single spectrum of vision, at limited range of possibilities? What is like to be trapped in an inevitability that cannot be overcomed even if the threat of the Reapers will be eliminated?

It must have something to do with the concepts of "insanity" and "suicide", EDI muses, dropping the mobile platform into the copilot's seat with a practiced movement.


End file.
